"'Well!' she repeated, slowly. 'You do not know what has happened,' and again she regarded me in the way I have described. "'No,' I said, returning her scrutiny, 'I don't understand what you mean by what has happened. I have seen a shocking thing down there. They are fighting in the _Via Egnatia_. Some are dead. We can't go that way, I'm afraid.' "Suddenly she dropped her hands from my arms and breathed deeply. 'Come!' she said, and hurried away from me. I had spoken the truth. I did not understand her, but her demeanour alarmed me. I followed, watching the silhouette of her body sway as she took her long strides. I had a fugitive notion that this performance was symbolical of our emotional existence--our souls pursue one another through a steep darkness, the victims of unpremeditated suspicions and fears. As she reached the lighted doorway she swung round and spread out her hands with a gesture of pity and grief. 'Look!' she said. 'As we came out someone fired. She was in front. It was not my fault.... You see.' "While she spoke I endeavoured to collect my forces. I looked down. I had a vivid impression of emerging from a place of imprisonment, a place of great noise and activity and warm, pleasant excitement, and of seeing before me a cold gray plain extending into the distance. And over this plain, I reflected, I was to travel, alone. I looked down, I say. I heard the girl beside me murmur hoarsely into my ear, and stoop to lift the form that lay motionless at our feet. "'No!' I said, drawing her back. 'This is for me to do. I will carry my own dead.'" CHAPTER IX